Naver injects $231.3 mln into French subsidiary through rights offering

SEOUL -- Naver Labs, the artificial intelligence wing of South Korea's top web portal, will inject 258.9 billion won ($231.3 million) into its French subsidiary through the purchase of new stocks as part of efforts to step up the development of new technologies.

Naver said in a regulatory filing Thursday that it would increase the paid-in capital of Naver Labs Europe, which researches on computer vision, natural language processing and machine learning, to raise a facility fund of 118.2 billion won and an operating fund of 140.7 billion won.

Naver Labs Europe was formerly known as Xerox Research Centre Europe. Its name was changed after Naver acquired it in June last year as part of efforts to catch up with global giants like Google and Amazon.

Naver Labs provides real-time translating service and develop technology on autonomous driving and machine learning. It has forged a robotics partnership with Here, an international map platform company in Amsterdam to create indoor maps. This year, Naver, the parent group, established its AI research center inside the campus of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).